Texan taste is a spicy hit

MOST re­al­ity tele­vi­sion foodies will re­mem­ber Robert Louis Murphy and his daugh­ter Lynzey from My Kitchen Rules.

Bet­ter known as the Texan cow­boy, Murphy stole the spotlight for his love of big, bold flavours and bar­be­cue of­ten with a side of hot and spicy sauce.

Murphy is back in the lime­light with the re­lease of his first book, Texan BBQ, show­cas­ing easy ways Aussies can em­brace Amer­i­can-style bar­be­cue.

Raised in Breck­en­ridge Texas, Murphy says his mother­land is home to more bar­be­cue restau­rants than any­where in the world.

“Texas has an end­less ar­ray of out­door cook­ing set-ups (bar­be­cue pits) and peo­ple there have re­fined these cook­ing meth­ods to an art form,’’ he says.

Murphy says Tex­ans of­ten bar­be­cue with wood and smoke on low heat and over a longer pe­riod of time.

“The spices in the Texan bar­be­cue are pretty much the same as any Aussie ones but I’ve no­ticed that peo­ple here don’t seem to tol­er­ate much heat in their food. Texan peo­ple put jalapeño pep­pers in ev­ery­thing.’’

Apart from great flavours, Murphy says Aussies will love Texan meth­ods of cook­ing be­cause most of it is done out­doors.

“Food pre­pared out­doors seems to taste bet­ter … ev­ery­one seems to be in a bet­ter mood with a party at­mos­phere. I was lucky enough to be raised in a place where cook­ing out­doors is a way of life.”

Murphy, who set­tled in Aus­tralia in 1992, pre­vi­ously worked in Mt Druitt and now calls the Blue Moun­tains home, says his first cook­ing at­tempt was at the age of eight with rab­bit.

“It came from watch­ing the West­erns on tele­vi­sion (they would cook a rab­bit on a stick over the camp­fire).

“My first bite, I can still re­mem­ber think­ing that tastes ab­so­lutely horrible but ate it any­way ... I was taught not to waste food.”

Many recipes in Texan BBQ have been handed down from Murphy’s cat­tler­anch­ing an­ces­tors.

Murphy says MKR gave him the plat­form he needed to launch a food ca­reer.

“It was a steep learn­ing curve with ev­ery­thing you cook done three times faster than how you nor­mally cook. It’s cook­ing un­der ex­treme duress. I am also en­joy­ing meet­ing peo­ple and learn­ing about their food jour­ney.’’